NJBiz undergoes big staff turnover

NJBiz, a business newspaper owned by BridgeTower Media, has seen an unusually high turnover in its editorial staff since the beginning of the year.

The latest occurred during the past few days, when health care and economic development reporter Vince Calio resigned from the paper and managing editor Carl DiOrio was terminated, according to multiple sources close to the paper.

Those moves follow these editorial departures since the first of the year:

• Arthur Augustyn, who left in February after seven months after his position was terminated and is looking for a full-time position.
• Real estate reporter Mario Marroquin, who left in March and starts at LatinFinance in August.
• John Parkinson, managing editor, who had just joined in October. Parkinson left for a marketing position at Bank of Princeton and was replaced by DiOrio.
• Emily Bader, who left in January to go to ROI-NJ, a competing business news site, where she is digital content editor.
• Maureen Nevin Duffy, hired to cover the New Jersey legislature and the state economy. She left within two weeks of her April 2 start date. “I, as the others, can say that leaving NJBiz was a great relief, despite the financial hardship,” she said to Talking Biz News.
• Elana Knopp, who was with the paper for less than a year.
• Photographer Aaron Houston. He had been there since June 2012.

Howard Burns, who had been the editor of the Pittsburgh Business Times, was hired as the editor of NJBiz and joined in November. He came on board after the previous editor and publisher left to start ROI-NJ in 2017.

Talking Biz News asked Burns and publisher Ken Kiczales for comment about the turnover.

We received this reply attributed to Kiczales:

We don’t discuss employee matters publicly. NJBIZ is New Jersey’s leading business journal and continues to inform and connect the state’s business community through its news, research, high-value lists and live events. Over the past year, we’ve grown our team and expanded our audience through several new and successful special issues, seminars and areas of coverage. We’re committed to serving the information needs of the local business community and welcome the opportunity to speak with talented reporters interested in joining our team.

BridgeTower’s parent GateHouse Media bought the paper in April 2016.